Always Words

It remains to be seen whether we, the human race, are capable of labeling without backloading a lot of assumed or misappropriated content.

"Calling a spade a spade" is one of those manly calls for simplicity and honesty which has its origin in the classical Greek (Plutarch) but that we avoid for the most part because of the history of racism that we can choose - or not - to backload into it. Even this exhortation for honest and brief naming of a thing sidesteps a deeper reflex of many people, which is to assume judgment attached to the naming of something. That is, people attach judgment to the very act of saying, because our words carry the baggage of history.

Indeed, simple labeling is actually a form of judgment, taxonomy is a classification, separation, distinguishing this thing from that. It is a mistake, however, to treat the words and phrases we use in everyday discourse, our everyday speech, with this kind of knife's edge precision, because while scientific classification is meant to be bloodless and free from passion, the things we talk about with each other most certainly are filled with emotion and perspective and personal experience. They have to be, or they wouldn't exist in the first place - or at bare minimum, they'd certainly be skull-bendingly boring.

When someone commits suicide, it creates a ripple of havoc that extends out into the world. In the case of Robin Williams, that ripple is huge, due to the impact of his life on this world of people. Part of the wave of havoc is the emotional reaction of the survivors, whose reactions are complicated. It'd be great, by comparison, if people were just "sad." That would be so much easier to deal with. But that's not how people work. Packed into the hole in your guts created by the tragic news of loss is a bunch of anger, confusion, guilt, and a desire to learn from the experience coupled with a sense of futility that as much as you'd like for no one to ever do this thing again, people are going to keep doing it.

So, then - taking a douche newsanchor to task for calling Robin a coward? He's a newsguy and should know better, but is suicide a cowardly act? To say that it isn't - ever - infers that choosing to live isn't braver than not choosing that, and I'd like to think that choosing living takes a hell of a lot more guts than choosing not to. By contrast, then, and in this context, suicide is a cowardly act. Labeling someone a coward over one act does not make sense, but calling the act what it is, again, in this context, is not inappropriate. We're angry with Robin for removing himself from our lives - people say dumb stuff when they're angry - it's just possible that the CNN guy needs to be cut some slack.

Neither is labeling the act "selfish" a completely wrong thing to do - suicide is, I believe, an inherently selfish act. Loading judgment into that word is the problem. Why do we have a problem calling the act of suicide selfish when it is entirely concerned with the self? Whether a person is capable or not of thinking of others at that moment does not enter into it; it is a self-centered act. Labeling the whole person selfish, or even the baseline connotative assumption that selfishness is always bad - these are what get us into trouble. Taking time for myself is selfish - taking too much time or all of the time would make me a selfish person. The rule of excess is important to remember. There's nothing wrong with sex or cheesecake - it's too much of either that lead to problems.

We invariably cast blame, and it is easy to blame the depressed person who killed themselves without acknowledging (as such knowledge was once thrust upon me) that depression changes brain chemistry and thus perception, and so the person who killed themselves may not have been looking at things in a way that non-depressed person - or perhaps even, any other person - can fully comprehend. You can't get inside someone's head, and you probably wouldn't want to. This is the thrust of the world filling up with "depression is a monster"-type articles. We need reminding.

It's also easy to blame others, but at the end of the day, if someone wants to kill themselves, they will, unless you rob them of their freedom, and even then, people find ways. The blame here is pointless. The best that we can do as the group left behind is engage in the previously mentioned exercise in futility - knowing that it will happen again, always, but trying your best to not have it happen once in a while. Those are called victories, because those individual people keep going, and that is a success.

To end, then: Robin Williams was an important part of my late-Middle and early High School existence. While my first memories of him are as Mork, obviously, he was in and out of my awareness until I got my hands on a VHS copy of A Night at the Met. I was amazed when I got it because Robin went from being goofy to being wise and livewire comedy genius in one hour. I must have played that tape hundreds of times, putting in my VCR and turn my TV's black levels up and falling asleep to just the soundtrack. Like a lot of people, I loved Good Morning, Vietnam, the Fisher King, One Hour Photo, his Genie & Fender the robot, and a bunch of other stuff, but A Night at the Met will always be Robin Williams for me.

Comments

Always Words

It remains to be seen whether we, the human race, are capable of labeling without backloading a lot of assumed or misappropriated content.

"Calling a spade a spade" is one of those manly calls for simplicity and honesty which has its origin in the classical Greek (Plutarch) but that we avoid for the most part because of the history of racism that we can choose - or not - to backload into it. Even this exhortation for honest and brief naming of a thing sidesteps a deeper reflex of many people, which is to assume judgment attached to the naming of something. That is, people attach judgment to the very act of saying, because our words carry the baggage of history.

Indeed, simple labeling is actually a form of judgment, taxonomy is a classification, separation, distinguishing this thing from that. It is a mistake, however, to treat the words and phrases we use in everyday discourse, our everyday speech, with this kind of knife's edge precision, because while scientific classification is meant to be bloodless and free from passion, the things we talk about with each other most certainly are filled with emotion and perspective and personal experience. They have to be, or they wouldn't exist in the first place - or at bare minimum, they'd certainly be skull-bendingly boring.

When someone commits suicide, it creates a ripple of havoc that extends out into the world. In the case of Robin Williams, that ripple is huge, due to the impact of his life on this world of people. Part of the wave of havoc is the emotional reaction of the survivors, whose reactions are complicated. It'd be great, by comparison, if people were just "sad." That would be so much easier to deal with. But that's not how people work. Packed into the hole in your guts created by the tragic news of loss is a bunch of anger, confusion, guilt, and a desire to learn from the experience coupled with a sense of futility that as much as you'd like for no one to ever do this thing again, people are going to keep doing it.

So, then - taking a douche newsanchor to task for calling Robin a coward? He's a newsguy and should know better, but is suicide a cowardly act? To say that it isn't - ever - infers that choosing to live isn't braver than not choosing that, and I'd like to think that choosing living takes a hell of a lot more guts than choosing not to. By contrast, then, and in this context, suicide is a cowardly act. Labeling someone a coward over one act does not make sense, but calling the act what it is, again, in this context, is not inappropriate. We're angry with Robin for removing himself from our lives - people say dumb stuff when they're angry - it's just possible that the CNN guy needs to be cut some slack.

Neither is labeling the act "selfish" a completely wrong thing to do - suicide is, I believe, an inherently selfish act. Loading judgment into that word is the problem. Why do we have a problem calling the act of suicide selfish when it is entirely concerned with the self? Whether a person is capable or not of thinking of others at that moment does not enter into it; it is a self-centered act. Labeling the whole person selfish, or even the baseline connotative assumption that selfishness is always bad - these are what get us into trouble. Taking time for myself is selfish - taking too much time or all of the time would make me a selfish person. The rule of excess is important to remember. There's nothing wrong with sex or cheesecake - it's too much of either that lead to problems.

We invariably cast blame, and it is easy to blame the depressed person who killed themselves without acknowledging (as such knowledge was once thrust upon me) that depression changes brain chemistry and thus perception, and so the person who killed themselves may not have been looking at things in a way that non-depressed person - or perhaps even, any other person - can fully comprehend. You can't get inside someone's head, and you probably wouldn't want to. This is the thrust of the world filling up with "depression is a monster"-type articles. We need reminding.

It's also easy to blame others, but at the end of the day, if someone wants to kill themselves, they will, unless you rob them of their freedom, and even then, people find ways. The blame here is pointless. The best that we can do as the group left behind is engage in the previously mentioned exercise in futility - knowing that it will happen again, always, but trying your best to not have it happen once in a while. Those are called victories, because those individual people keep going, and that is a success.

To end, then: Robin Williams was an important part of my late-Middle and early High School existence. While my first memories of him are as Mork, obviously, he was in and out of my awareness until I got my hands on a VHS copy of A Night at the Met. I was amazed when I got it because Robin went from being goofy to being wise and livewire comedy genius in one hour. I must have played that tape hundreds of times, putting in my VCR and turn my TV's black levels up and falling asleep to just the soundtrack. Like a lot of people, I loved Good Morning, Vietnam, the Fisher King, One Hour Photo, his Genie & Fender the robot, and a bunch of other stuff, but A Night at the Met will always be Robin Williams for me.